ARTICLES ABOUT HANDGUN BY DATE - PAGE 2

Should the people of Virginia be able to purchase more than one handgun a month? The law, for now, says no. A state statute passed in 1994 says that you can only buy one handgun within any 30-day period. The law was seen to offset Virginia's status as one of the country's gun-running states. But the House of Delegates has voted 66-32 in favor of a bill by Del. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William, to scrap the restriction. The change would allow purchasers to buy as many handguns as they see fit. Lingamfelter says that a national system for background checks, more technologically advanced in recent years, has rendered the gun limit unnecessary.

RICHMOND - Three major pieces of socially conservative legislation advanced in the General Assembly Wednesday as the Senate passed a measure requiring women to get an ultrasound before receiving an abortion and the House of Delegates voted to repeal the state's one-handgun-a-month limit and to require voters to show identification at the polls or vote a provisional ballot. On a vote of 21-18, the Senate passed a bill that would require a woman to receive an ultrasound 24 hours before they receive an abortion.

It was a gut-wrenching alert: A suspected gunman on the loose on the same college campus where 32 students and faculty were massacred by a crazed shooter in 2007. But this time the administration at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg sprang into action. Sirens blared across campus, digital message boards scrolled in classrooms, text and phone messages shot out to more than 45,000 subscribers to the Tech alert system, emails to the entire campus. Someone hit the intercom, telling students about the sighting, instructing them to remain in their classrooms, to stay put. By 9:37 a.m. last Thursday, this message was posted on the university's website: "At 9:09 a.m., three juveniles attending a camp at the university reported seeing a white male, 6 feet tall, with light brown hair outside of New Residence Hall East holding what may have been a handgun.

A 16-year-old Newport News boy has been placed in juvenile detention after police say he brought a loaded handgun onto the grounds of Huntington Middle School. The boy, who has not been identified, is a ninth-grade student at Enterprise Academy. He is charged with possession of a firearm on school property, underage possession of a firearm, having a concealed weapon, brandishing a firearm, truancy and trespassing on school property. Police spokesman Lou Thurston said that around 1:30 p.m. Monday two students at Huntington Middle School told a teacher that they had seen a male juvenile on school property with a handgun.

GLOUCESTER — Hoping to end months of confrontations with neighbors that culminated in allegations of a gun being drawn, a Gloucester dentist made a deal with prosecutors that he would behave and not possess a handgun for one year. "Firmly" maintaining his innocence, Bill Dodson entered an Alford plea Tuesday in Gloucester County Circuit Court. An Alford plea means Dodson admits there is sufficient evidence for the court to convict him of the misdemeanor offense of pointing or brandishing a firearm at another, but does not admit guilt.

An 18-year-old student was arrested at Warwick High School this morning after a loaded handgun was found locked in the trunk of the student's car. Principal Rory Stapleton sent a note to staff about the incident, which occurred about 8:35 a.m. School officials also are sending an automated message to families. Montaz Anthony Davis, of the 700 block of Adams Drive in Newport News, was charged with possession of a firearm on school property, according to Harold Eley, a spokesman for the Newport News police department.

Police in Hampton have released a composite image of the suspect in a business robbery that occurred Thursday. According to the police report, a man entered a business in the 600 block of LaSalle Avenue around 9:30 p.m. armed with a handgun and demanded money. He struck an employee on the back of the head with his handgun and fled with an undisclosed amount of cash in a black car that police believe may have been an older model Chevrolet Impala or Caprice. The man is described as a black male in his 20s, about 6-foot-2 and 175 pounds with scruffy facial hair and a gap in his teeth.

A man armed with a handgun robbed a Suffolk hotel last night, and police believe he may be responsible for two similar hotel robberies in the past week. The Holiday Inn Express on Centerbrooke Lane was robbed around 9:15 p.m. Thursday. A man with a handgun entered the lobby, and when the clerk fled the desk area, the man climbed over the counter and took an undisclosed amount of cash. He fled the hotel on foot. The man is described as a black male, about 6-foot tall, wearing a light-colored fleece jacket and a light-colored skull cap with ring designs.

A Suffolk man was arrested over the weekend and charged with firing shots into the home of his ex-girlfriend, and he could face additional charges after officers found an illegal cache of weapons and ammunition in his home. David Lynn Meacham Jr., 41, is charged with attempted malicious wounding and firing into an occupied dwelling. He has also been charged with the use of a firearm in commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and a misdemeanor count of using profane and vulgar language on the telephone.